English Dub Review: The Prince of Tennis II U-17 World Cup “The Final Illusion”
Overview
In the next match, Team Japan’s Duke and Nio face off against Schneider and Belti, two of the three tennis pros on Team Germany.
Our Take
This series, which began as a grounded sports anime, has taken a wacky turn into the surreal. Once focused on the technical skills and strategy of tennis, it now centers around characters with fantastically exaggerated shit that go far beyond the game itself.
Matches now feel like a superpower showdown rather than a test of tennis skill. There’s no longer an emphasis on footwork, spins, or precision; instead, characters continuously unlock powers to counter each other’s “super moves” making the proceedings feel overshadowed by flashy powers instead of actual technique or strategy. It’s pretty damn weird, to say the least…
Overall, this crazy direction has left me perplexed at how weird this show is getting. With characters even switching alliances and showcasing abilities beyond the usual sports framework, the show has become a spectacle that’s both entertaining and polarizing, blending tennis with a dose of pure fantasy. Hopefully, we can focus on the games and completely ignore the fact that one of the German players appears as a towering giant for some reason…
There's got to be some kind of twist that's going to happen with this. I don't know if they're setting up an April Fool's joke now or what's going on, but it seems too strange that they'd suddenly reverse on doing a fourth and fifth season after the show was already renewed and they were even just talking about working on those seasons like a couple months ago or something. Or maybe the two episodes yet to release will secretly somehow each be like a "season" in themselves?